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GoFundMe account set up for Dupo mother of 5 badly hurt in DUI crash

St. Louis Post-Dispatch (MO)

Nov. 17--A Dupo mother of five says she was left unable to walk for months, her family's only car was totaled and her husband was left struggling to keep up with medical bills after a head-on collision with an alleged drunken driver.

"I saw him clear as day," Trina Welebob O'Guinn said of the driver who crashed into her last week. "I wish I could forget but the flashbacks keep playing in my head. I swerved in time but he just came too far over and crashed right into me, head-on."

Investigator Scott Toth of the St. Clair County sheriff's office said the cars collided at about 10:30 p.m. Thursday in the 2800 block of Stolle Road.

The suspected drunken driver, Anthony Lopez Duran, 21, of New Baden, was charged with felony DUI and held in lieu of $65,000 bail.

O'Guinn told deputies she was coming around the corner and Duran's vehicle was already out of control.

She said in an interview Monday that she was about halfway home from her parent's house in Cahokia when she saw the approaching van swerving back and forth on the dark, narrow road.

The collision crumpled the front of O'Guinn's Nissan Maxima, crushing her legs and trapping her inside the vehicle, she said. The car was totaled.

"The dashboard was pretty much sitting on top of me," she said. "My legs were smashed."

O'Guinn said emergency crews had to cut through both front car doors and a section of the roof to get her out of the vehicle. She was airlifted to St. Louis University Hospital with broken legs and broken ribs.

O'Guinn says she "might not have made it" were it not for people driving by who heard her screams for help.

Duran, she said, had ignored her. She said she heard him take off on foot when the passerby pulled up and called 911.

"If this were a really elderly man taking a back road or someone who lost control, I really couldn't bring myself to be mad at them," she said. "But when he chose to get out of that van and run, he chose not to call for help or see if I needed help, not only did he ruin my life, he also was choosing to end it."

Toth said Wednesday that Duran ran off after the crash. Deputies caught him and arrested him later that night.

Deputies detected a strong odor of alcohol, and Duran failed a field-sobriety test, Toth said. In addition to a felony DUI charge, Duran was booked on several traffic offenses. He did not have a valid driver's license or insurance.

O'Guinn said doctors told her that her legs wouldn't be able to bear weight for months and that she may lose her right foot.

She said she is worried about having to pay medical bills and buy a new car ahead of the holidays. She said she was unable to work before the crash after being diagnosed with lupus and rheumatoid arthritis. Her husband, Tim O'Guinn, a contractor who does roofing and home renovating, has been the sole breadwinner of the family. The couple have five children, ages 5-14.

A family friend set up a GoFundMe page for the family.

O'Guinn said she wants drunken drivers to understand that driving while intoxicated puts other lives at stake.

"I just want people to think twice before they drive when they're intoxicated," she said. "It's not just their life they're risking but the lives of everyone else on the road, and their families and their friends."